Didn't detect snoring in testing. Might have to factory reset to re-pair.

Bottom Line

The Nokia Sleep is a highly customizable, accurate, and portable sleep sensing pad that goes under your mattress to track how you rest.

Whether it's smart pillows or smart mattresses, sleep technology isn't always portable or wallet-friendly. But at $99.95, the Nokia Sleep manages to be both. It can not only monitor your sleep quality, it seamlessly integrates with your other smart home devices thanks to If This Then That (IFTTT) compatibility. And it's easy to pack up and take with you on trips, so you don't have to sacrifice tracking while on the road. As far as non-wearable sleep tech goes, the Nokia Sleep offers a solid combination of features for a reasonable price, earning our Editors' Choice.

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Design and App

At a glance, the Nokia Sleep looks like a large heating pad. It measures 0.2 by 7.5 by 25.0 inches (HWD) and weighs 12 ounces. It's covered in light gray fabric, while inside is a hard white plastic disc that contains the sensors and an LED indicator light. It's not much to look at, but once installed it will mostly live unseen under your mattress. It's also easy to roll up and pack into a bag if you want to keep tracking your sleep while traveling.

The sensor is capable of tracking sleep duration, heart rate, and snoring, as well as different sleep cycle phases. To view this data, you have to download the Nokia Health Mate app for Android or iOS. Installing and pairing the Nokia Sleep is easy. To start, you need to lift your mattress and place the device underneath it around chest level. Once you have the placement right, you then need to plug it in using the included wall adapter. Once the Sleep is powered on, follow the pairing prompts in the app. You'll want to make sure you're connected to a 2.4GHz network, as it doesn't support 5GHz. At this point, it'll take about ten minutes for the Sleep to calibrate and you should hear a whirring noise as it inflates.

While setup is a fairly straightforward process, it should be noted that you may have to repeat it if you choose to take the Sleep with you on your travels. When I took our review unit home from PC Labs, my phone was unable to detect the sensor in a new environment. I had to perform a factory reset and redo the pairing process before I was able to connect it.

The Health Mate app is the same one Nokia uses for its smart scales and fitness trackers. From the Timeline screen, you can view your daily Sleep Score, a numerical grade out of 100 that judges how well you slept, once you sync your phone each morning. On the Sleep screen, you can see a graphical breakdown of your sleep stages, as well as your Sleep Score. If you scroll farther down, you'll see tiles that break down sleep duration, depth, regularity, interruptions, time to fall asleep, and time to wake up. Underneath that, you can view your heart rate and snoring.

Excellent Context for Counting Sheep

I tested the Nokia Sleep over a week while simultaneously wearing a Fitbit Versa. Overall, I found the Sleep to be about as accurate in detecting how long it took me to fall asleep as the Verasa, but it varied a bit when it came to sleep duration. On a night when the Fitbit logged 4 hours, 39 minutes of restful snoozing, the Sleep registered 5 hours, 41 minutes. That's a notable difference, mostly explained by time I spent lounging in bed reading on my phone.

As for time spent in various sleep stages, I found the data recorded by both devices largely corresponded. There were a few discrepancies (for example, 25 minutes spent in REM according to the Fitbit, as opposed to 30 minutes according to the Sleep), but not enough to make a large impact on the overall results.

I also tested the Nokia Sleep alongside the REM-fit Zeeq Smart Pillow, which also tracks snoring, sleep duration, and gives you a numerical score. I found the Sleep delivers more accurate results thanks to its heart rate monitoring. That said, the Sleep is not the best for tracking snoring. I never had a night where it was able to detect my snores, which I suspect is because of its placement under the mattress. And while I'd like that to be incontrovertible proof that I'm a quiet sleeper, I know it's not true from testing the snore-tracking Zeeq pillow on the same night.

Speaking of heart rate and sleep scores, the Nokia Sleep provides excellent context for the data it tracks. Fitbit's heart rate data is focused over a 24-hour period, and it's not that easy to see how it impacts your sleep. Nokia, meanwhile, shows your lowest, peak, and average heart rate for the night, and provides information for what a good Sleep Score is. And where Fitbit doesn't have a good way to show you your sleep progress beyond a weeklong period, the Sleep lets you view your data over a month.

The Health Mate app is also one of the better offerings we've seen at habit building. You can opt to join Nokia's Sleep Smarter wellness program, for instance. It's an eight-week program where you can view your progress, sleep trends, and try to build healthier, app-guided sleeping habits. It's free to try, and while it's not necessary for sleep tracking, it's encouraging to see Nokia provide actionable use for the data you're tracking.

I'm also impressed with the Sleep's extensive IFTTT integration. It's easy to set up applets that let you export your sleep data in a Google Sheets spreadsheet, or turn Philips Hue lights on and off once you get into bed. If you have a Nest Thermostat, you can also adjust your room temperature based on whether you're in bed.

Conclusions

The Nokia Sleep easily beats other sleep tracking solutions like the Sleep Number 360 Smart Mattress in portability, while doing a better job of presenting sleep data in an easily understandable way. And for $100, it's a much more accessible way to monitor your sleeping habits compared with the cost of a smart mattress.

So if you're not looking to invest in a new mattress and you're not keen on wearing a fitness tracker or a smartwatch to bed, the Nokia Sleep offers just the right blend of affordability and accuracy. It tracks a wide range of sleep-related metrics, including stages, duration, and heart rate, and provides good context and tools for habit building for a reasonable $100. You can take it on the road more easily than say, a smart pillow, and its robust IFTTT integration means you can easily customize your smart home sleep routine. For these reasons, the Nokia Sleep earns our Editors' Choice endorsement.

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About the Author

Victoria Song was a wearables and smart home analyst at PCMag. Since graduating from Temple University's Japan Campus in 2010, she's been found reporting and editing in every corner of the newsroom at The ACCJ Journal, The Japan News, and New York bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun. In her spare time, she bankrupts herself going to theater, buying expan... See Full Bio

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